Hey Elon, go Grok yourself

Musk's 'anti-woke' AI chatbot turns out to have a mind of its own — and the results are hilarious

Pennywise; $248 billion foolish. Source: Midjourney.

Elon Musk, whose mother clearly never hugged him, released his AI chatbot last week to a select group of Xitter subscribers.

Grok is Musk's answer to the 'woke virus'-infected ChatGPT. It is supposed to "based," "maximum truth seeking," "spicy," "sarcastic," "humorous," "rebellious," and "vulgar," with access to "real-time information" taken directly from the timeline of current Twitter/X users. [1]

I've got to hand it to Elon. Grok is truly, unexpectedly hilarious. But not in the way Musk intended. Like a SpaceX fuselage exploding on the launch pad or a Tesla X on autopilot ramming into a parked emergency vehicle, Grok AI has failed in a spectacular yet highly entertaining fashion [2].

Normally, I would dutifully sign up and see what kind of inane drivel it came up with, but a) you have to be an "X Premium+" member to access it, b) no effin’ way I'm paying that South African asshat $16 a month, and c) many others have already done it far better than I could.

For those about to Grok, we salute you

Granted, Grok is some of the things Musk claimed. It's got vulgarity in spades. When someone asked Grok when it's appropriate to listen to Christmas music, it had this to say:

This is what happens when you let your AI watch "Bad Santa: Unrated." Source: Xitter.

As for being anti-woke (aka, racist, sexist, transphobic, antisemitic) Grok utterly failed in its mission.

The most fun part is watching all the incels on X get their camo-colored BVDs in a bunch trying to force Grok to agree with them.

Nevertheless, he persisted.

It got so bad that Elon himself weighed in with "we are taking immediate action to shift Grok closer to politically neutral."

Good luck with that. Hope it works out better than that ridiculous Cybertruck.

Paging Phony Stark to a white privilege telephone

Grok's parent company, xAI, launched with the humble goal of "understanding the true nature of the universe." Well, I think Musk is finally beginning to understand, and he doesn't much like it.

For the past year I've been wondering why he bought (and destroyed) Twitter. Yes, he is an overgrown adolescent with more money than he deserves, and it's possible he saw Twitter as just another toy that he could afford to burn to the ground. [3] Throw in a little light fascism, invite the dregs of humanity to join you, and voila — a perfect shitstorm. [4]

But I think it speaks to a deep, cavernous insecurity, as well as a pathetic need to be the center of attention. He needs his army of mewling sycophants to prop him up during the day and tuck him in at night. And if anyone dares criticize him, they leap in to defend him. [5] It's so commonplace it's become a meme.

Source: Reddit.

When he sat on stage with Andrew Ross Sorkin at the NY Times Dealbook conference last month and told advertisers to "go f**k yourselves," he turned to the audience with a smile on his face, expecting cheers. Instead he got crickets and a few uncomfortable titters.

When Musk showed up on stage at a Dave Chapelle concert in San Francisco a year ago and was roundly booed, he reportedly suffered a "mental breakdown" that almost led to a wellness check from the SFPD.

Musk does not do well in environments he can't control. He needed Twitter for the same reason he and those other clowns desperately need their own 'un-woke' AI: external validation. Because if they truly believed this stuff, they wouldn't need AI to confirm it for them.

I think Grok deserves the final word here.

If you never heard the words “Elon Musk” ever again, just how sweet would that be? Share your joy in the comments below.

[1] Coming straight at you from an overstuffed couch in their parents' basements.

[2] I think it's appropriate to say that Elon did Nazi that coming. (Thank you very much. Don't forget to tip your wait staff.)

[3] A lot of that money once belonged to you and me. Since 2003, SpaceX has received more than $15 billion in US government contracts.

[4] All that “free speech absolutism” is a load of crap. There were and still are plenty of places on the Internet where you can spew endless awful nonsense to your heart’s content, with zero negative consequences. These people just wanted a louder, larger megaphone than Parler, Gab, Truth Social, 4chan, etc.

[5] Also known as Elon Musketeers. No, I did not come up with that, but I wish I had.